“Donald Trump has so fundamentally corrupted U.S. foreign policy that you have career diplomats put in a position where they’re basically acting on behalf of the president’s re-election campaign.'
WASHINGTON — In July 2008, President George W. Bush nominated a capable midcareer diplomat to serve as the U.S. representative to NATO. In a welcome sign of bipartisanship, the diplomat was introduced to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee by Robert P. Casey Jr., a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania.
Trump wanted Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine, where he had served on the board of an energy company, which some on the political right have spun into an intricate and unfounded conspiracy theory, one that Trump himself has promoted. Volker said in his House testimony that Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, wanted the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens, and that he warned Giuliani against pushing for such an investigation.
Volker is one of several diplomats and government officials caught up in the Ukraine inquiry. Others include Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, who appears to have played a key role in Trump’s effort to push the Ukrainian investigation. The new director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, handled the original whistleblower complaint that sounded alarms about the Ukraine call; Democrats have charged that he did not sound those alarms soon enough.
It has been an astonishing trajectory for Volker, who never sought the limelight that is now shining so harshly on his career. “There are a lot of angles to Kurt,” Giuliani told Yahoo News in an extensive phone conversation.
That attitude of suspicion has only hardened in recent years, even as Trump has continued to make overtures to Putin. In a 2017 interview with Politico, he made no effort to downplay Russia’s aggression in the Donbass and Crimean regions of Ukraine. “This is a Russian invasion, a Russian occupation of territory,” he said.
Volker also worked for BGR Group, another influential consulting firm in Washington. BGR has lobbied for defense contractor Raytheon, which makes Javelin antitank missiles, which Ukraine has sought for its ongoing defense against an invasion by Russia. Some have suggested that represented a conflict of interest for Volker, since he had been pushing for the strengthening of Ukrainian border positions as a government official.
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